Technology

The technology borrows from an established imaging technique called expansion microscopy; it's just running in reverse.
The post MIT's ‘Implosion Fabrication' Shrinks Objects to Create Nanoscale Versions appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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The object known as "Farout" is 120 times farther from the sun than Earth, putting it far beyond the orbit of Pluto.
The post Astronomers Discover ‘Farout' Dwarf Planet at Edge of Our Solar System appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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LG has released a 1440p monitor with FreeSync support and an IPS panel. It's a solid offering if you're in the market.
The post New LG Display Offers 1440p, FreeSync Support, IPS for $300 appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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Google may have already started using its browser dominance to disadvantage its competitors. That's no kind of good sign, even if you prefer Chrome to any other browser.
The post Ex-Microsoft Intern: Google Deliberately Crippled Edge Browser appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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Researchers have detected a protostar so massive, a star is forming around it -- just like a planet would.
The post Astronomers Caught a Star Forming Just Like a Planet appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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Say what you will about human delivery drivers. They may be surly and less efficient, but they don't catch fire.
The post Delivery Robot Catches Fire at UC Berkeley, Students Hold Candlelight Vigil appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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NASA's next Mars rover doesn't have a name yet, but it does have a landing zone. You can take a closer look at the Mars 2020 rover's home-to-be in a new video assembled from the latest NASA orbital imagery.
The post Get a Birds-Eye View of NASA's Mars 2020 Rover Landing Zone appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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A new, unspoiled tomb from Egypt's Fifth Dynasty is one of the oldest, most pristine discoveries of its kind.
The post Archaeologists Discover Unspoiled Egyptian Tomb, Sealed For 4,400 Years appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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We're just about a week out from Christmas, and some great deals are still popping up. You can snag a full HD Wyze Labs V2 security camera for under 20 bucks, get Black Friday pricing on a 50-inch Samsung 4K TV, and grab a $25 gift card with the purchase of a PlayStation Classic.
The post ET Deals: $20 Wyze V2 1080p WiFi Cameras, Black Friday Samsung 50-Inch 4K HDTV for $348 appeared first on ExtremeTech.
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SoftBank Corp's initial public offering today started with a bang before trailing off into a whimper, with the stock falling 14.5 percent during its first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The company is the mobile unit of conglomerate SoftBank Group, whose holdings also include Sprint and the $100 billion Vision Fund.
Shares of SoftBank Corp opened at 1,463 yen, below the 1,500 yen the company had set for its IPO price (instead of a range), and closed at 1,282 yen. It offered 160 million shares, or about a third of the total held by parent company SoftBank Group. Despite a bumpy first day of trading, SoftBank Corp raised a total of 2.65 trillion yen (about $23.5 billion), making it Japan's largest ever IPO and placing it just behind Alibaba's record-setting $25 billion debut on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014 (SoftBank Group is one of Alibaba's largest shareholders).
According to Bloomberg, 90 percent of the investors who bought SoftBank Corp shares at the 1,500 opening price were individuals, who the company had targeted in an unusual marketing campaign.
Factors that may have dampened investor enthusiasm about include a network outage earlier this month triggered by a shutdown of Ericsson equipment due to expired software certificates (O2 customers in Great Britain were also affected).
The outage underscored other concerns about SoftBank Corp's telecommunications infrastructure. According to a Nikkei report published last week, the company has decided to stop using hardware from Huawei Technologies due to security concerns and replace them over the next several years with equipment by Ericsson and Nokia.
While the company says the hardware swap isn't expected to cost a lot of money, it will also need to deal with more competition next year. SoftBank Corp's rivals are currently NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, but Rakuten will launch cellular service in October 2019, making it Japan's fourth mobile network operator.
Furthermore, SoftBank Group also carries massive debt that totaled 18 trillion yen (about $160 billion) as of the end of September, more than six times the amount it earns on an operating basis. This means the Vision Fund is especially reliant on Saudi Arabia's sovereign fund, which contributed $48 billion, making it the fund's largest investor.
Saudi Arabia's sovereign fund, called the Public Investment Fund, is run by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has been implicated by Turkish officials and the United State's Central Intelligence Agency in the planning of journalist [...]

As Facebook continues to grasp the severity of the situation in Myanmar, where the UN has concluded that its social network plays “determining role” in inciting genocide, the U.S. tech giant has completed a third sweep in recent months to remove bad actors from its platform.
Facebook said late Tuesday U.S. time that it has removed a total of 135 Facebook accounts, 425 Pages, 17 Groups and an additional 15 Instagram accounts with this latest piece of action.
Facebook has around 20 million users in Myanmar — that's nearly all of the country's internet users and nearly 40 percent of the population — and it gave some stats on the reach that it has now nullified:
Approximately 2.5 million people followed at least one of these Facebook Pages
Approximately 6,400 people belonged to at least one of these Facebook Groups
Approximately 1,300 people followed at least one these Instagram accounts
This is Facebook third such cull in recent months. Its previous removals impacted some high-profile individuals as Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the military-owned Myawady television network were removed from the social network following “evidence [that they] committed or enabled serious human rights abuses in the country.”
What's notable about this newest action is that the company said it took action because of “the behavior of these actors rather than on the type of content they were posting.”
We're waiting for further confirmation on exactly what that means, but acting irrespective of posted content would represent an interesting change in its policing, and it could impact Facebook's efforts in Myanmar — and other areas — going forward.
Nearly everyone who has internet access in Myanmar uses Facebook, giving it an estimated user base of around 20 million. AFP PHOTO / Nicolas ASFOURI / Getty Images
That's promising but, unfortunately, it appears that Facebook is still reluctant to commit to opening a local office in Myanmar. That's something that local civic groups on the ground in Myanmar — who have worked with Facebook to improve the situation — have called a key requirement for meaningful progress.
“How many companies have 20 million users in one country but don't have a single employee, it's absurd,” Jes Petersen — CEO of accelerator firm Phandeeyar, which is part of the advisory group — told TechCrunch last month. “An office would go a long way to building relationships with stakeholders.”
Facebook declined to comment on the possibility of a Myanmar-based [...]

A new study by Amnesty International and Element AI puts number to a problem many women already know about: that Twitter is a cesspool of harassment and abuse. Conducted with the help of 6,500 volunteers, the study, billed by Amnesty International as “the largest ever” into online abuse against women, used machine-learning software from Element AI to analyze tweets sent to a sample of 778 women politicians and journalists during 2017. It found that 7.1%, or 1.1 million, of those tweets were either “problematic” or “abusive,” which Amnesty International said amounts to one abusive tweet sent every 30 seconds.
On an interactive website breaking down the study's methodology and results, Amnesty International said many women either censor what they post, limit their interactions on Twitter, or just quit the platform altogether. “At a watershed moment when women around the world are using their collective power to amplify their voices through social media platforms, Twitter's failure to consistently and transparently enforce its own community standards to tackle violence and abuse means that women are being pushed backwards towards a culture of silence,” stated the human rights advocacy organization.
Amnesty International, which has been researching abuse against women on Twitter for the past two years, signed up 6,500 volunteers for what it refers to as the “Troll Patrol” after releasing another study in March 2018 that described Twitter as a “toxic” place for women. The Troll Patrol's volunteers, who come from 150 countries and range in age from 18 to 70 years old, received training about constitutes a problematic or abusive tweet. Then they were shown anonymized tweets mentioning one of the 778 women and asked whether or not the tweets were problematic or abusive. Each tweet was shown to several volunteers. In addition, Amnesty International said “three experts on violence and abuse against women” also categorized a sample of 1,000 tweets to “ensure we were able to assess the quality of the tweets labelled by our digital volunteers.”
The study defined “problematic” as tweets “that contain hurtful or hostile content, especially if repeated to an individual on multiple occasions, but do not necessarily meet the threshold of abuse,” while “abusive” meant tweets “that violate Twitter's own rules and include content that promote violence against or threats of people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
In total, the volunteers analyzed [...]

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's vision of an “entirely new system of transport,” which he unveiled Wednesday night at a splashy event in Hawthorne, California, wasn't a reusable rocket like the ones he's building at his nearby SpaceX headquarters. Nor is it an electric vehicle, like the Teslas he is producing at a factory in Fremont, California.
Tonight, Musk showed off a 1.14-mile test tunnel — that snakes its way underneath 120th Street in the city of Hawthorne — that his other business, the Boring Company, dug for about $10 million using a modified boring machine called Godot. (That $10 million figures includes the cost of building the tunnel, all internal infrastructure, lighting, communication and video, safety systems, ventilation, and track, according to the company.) For Musk, this is merely a demonstration of what could be: a network of low-cost tunnels used for transportation, utilities or water and built for millions of dollars, or even billions less than those constructed for subways or trains.
And it's a vision that he's funding, for now. Musk estimates he's spent about $40 million of his own money funding The Boring Company .
Boring is developing an entirely new system of transport
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2018
These tunnels, which at about 12-feet in diameter are smaller than a subway, are cheaper to build thanks to the company's boring machines, Musk and Boring Company president Steve Davis contend.
The tunnels could be stacked — Musk calls it a 3D network — and operate like a giant underground highway with vehicles entering and exiting at strategic points along the way via ramp, spiral or elevator depending on available space. The main tunnel would allow vehicles, which are stabilized via a retractable tracking wheels, to travel up to 150 miles per hour. Once a vehicle leaves the main artery, speeds would be reduced. (The retractable tracking wheels are important, new development; Musk said they originally were going to place the vehicles on a skate, which would travel at high speeds, but ditched the idea because it was too “complex.”
https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/00499-MX1-boring_company_verB-MPT-003b_REVERSE.mp4
These entry points could take as little room as two parking spaces for an elevator, Musk said, which TechCrunch was able to attest to, at least with the demonstration tunnel.
“You can weave these stations throughout the fabric of the city without changing the character of the city, Musk said during a press briefing.
There are some important caveats to this system. This [...]

By any measure Facebook hasn't had the best of years in 2018.
But while toxic problems keep piling up and, well, raining acidly down on the social networking giant — from election interference, to fake accounts, faulty metrics, security flaws, ethics failures, privacy outrages and much more besides — the silver lining of having a core business now widely perceived as hostile to democratic processes and civilized sentiment, and the tool of choice for shitposters agitating for hate and societal division, well, everywhere in the world, is that Facebook has frankly far more important things to worry about than the latest anti-tech-industry salvo from President Trump.
In an early morning tweet today, Trump (again) attacked what he dubbed anti-conservative “bias” in the digital social sphere — hitting out at not just Facebook but tech's holy trinity of social giants, with a claim that “Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased towards the Dems it is ridiculous!”
Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous! Twitter, in fact, has made it much more difficult for people to join @realDonaldTrump. They have removed many names & greatly slowed the level and speed of increase. They have acknowledged-done NOTHING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2018
Time was when Facebook was so sensitive to accusations of internal anti-conservative bias that it fired a bunch of journalists it had contracted and replaced them with algorithms — which almost immediately pumped up a bunch of fake news. RIP irony.
Not today, though.
When asked if it had a response to Trump's accusation of bias a Facebook spokesperson told us: “We don't have anything to add here.”
The brevity and alacrity of the response suggested the spokesperson had a really cheerful expression on their face when they typed it.
The relief of Facebook not having to give a shit this time was kinda palpable, even in pixel form.
It was also a far cry from the screeds the company routinely dispenses these days to try to muffle journalistic — and indeed political — enquiry.
Trump evidently doesn't factor ‘bigly' on Facebook's oversubscribed risk-list.
Even though Facebook was the first name on the president's (non-alphabetical) tech giant hit-list.
Still, Twitter appeared to have irked Trump more, as his tweet singled out the short-form platform — with an accusation that Twitter has made it “much more difficult for people to join [sic] @realDonaldTrump”. (We think by “join” he means follow. But we're speculating [...]

Uber has been granted permission by the state of Pennsylvania to reinstate tests of its autonomous vehicles, as first reported by Reuters.
A spokesperson for Uber confirmed to TechCrunch that the ride-hailing giant received a letter of authorization from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and clarified that the company has not yet resumed self-driving operations.
Uber halted testing of its self-driving cars following a fatal accident in Tempe, Arizona this March that left a pedestrian dead. An autonomous Uber SUV accompanied by a safety driver was driving northbound when it struck a woman, who was taken to the hospital where she later died as a result of her injuries.
Investigators later determined the driver, Rafaela Vasquez, had looked down at a phone 204 times during a 43-minute test drive, according to a 318-page police report released by the Tempe Police Department.
In the aftermath of the accident, Uber paused all of its AV testing operations in Pittsburgh, Toronto, San Francisco and Phoenix.
Moving forward, Uber will test its self-driving cars more cautiously, per a recently released Uber safety report. The company will require that two employees are in the front seat of its cars at all times, that an automatic braking system is enabled and that its safety employees are more strictly monitored.
Uber, which first began developing its autonomous vehicle fleet in 2015 and initiated tests the following year, confidentially filed for an initial public offering two weeks ago. The company, currently valued at $72 billion, is expected to debut at a valuation as high as $120 billion early next year.
Uber files confidentially for IPO
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Smart security camera maker Lighthouse AI is calling it a day. The news, first reported by The Information, has since been confirmed by CEO Alex Teichman.
“I am incredibly proud of the groundbreaking work the Lighthouse team accomplished – delivering useful and accessible intelligence for our homes via advanced AI and 3D sensing,” the executive writes on the company's homepage. “Unfortunately, we did not achieve the commercial success we were looking for and will be shutting down operations in the near future.”
Teichman also promises the company will provide refund details to those customers who have already bought into the product.
Lighthouse's offering certainly showed promise. Andy Rubin's Playground Global was among those companies throwing their support behind the device, helping the startup raise ~$17 million, by Crunchbase's count.
I was given a demo at Playground's offices earlier this year and was impressed by its implementation of 3D sensing and artificial intelligence to get a much more focused picture of what the device is recording. From Greg's initial writeup:
One aspect of Lighthouse that's particularly unique is in how you're meant to peruse your footage; it's aiming to be less of a security camera and more of an assistant. Rather than scrubbing a timeline, you ask the in-app natural language processing system (think Google Assistant or Alexa, but it only cares about what's going on in your house) for what you want. You ask it things like “Did the dog walker come on Wednesday?”, or “When did the kids get home yesterday?” and it responds with relevant footage.
Of course, some things just can't be overcome. An overcrowded market is one. The space is flooded with products, while being mostly dominated by Netgear spin-off, Arlo. And then there was the $300 price tag. That's well out of the range of much of the competition.
Teichman ends the write-up on a hopeful note, however, “We remain strong believers in a future with AI at your service, and look forward to inventing that future with you.” Perhaps we'll see the company's impressive technology implemented on another smart camera in the future?
We've reached out to Playground for additional comment.
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Tinder has fired its vice president of marketing and communications Rosette Pambakian, as well as other employees who sued Tinder's parent company Match Group and its controlling shareholder IAC earlier this year.
The Verge first broke the news of the firings. A Match Group spokesperson confirmed that a number of Tinder employees have been terminated, though they did not identify them or say how many were involved.
The lawsuit was filed by Tinder co-founders Sean Rad, Justin Mateen and Jonathan Badeen and other executives. Some, like Rad, had already left Tinder, while others like Pambakian and Badeen, were still employed at the time.
In the suit, the group alleged that IAC and Match Group had manipulated financial data in order to lower the company's valuation.They also alleged that Greg Blatt, who served as CEO of Match and Tinder, groped and sexually harassed Pambakian at the company's 2016 holiday party. (Match and IAC said the allegations were “meritless.”)
In an email sent to Match Group's current CEO Mandy Ginsberg, Pambakian said that after being placed on leave when the lawsuit was filed, she was subjected to “ongoing intimidation and retaliation clearly designed to pressure me into resigning.” Pambakian also said that after she declined to sign a non-disparagement agreement, “Match snuck an arbitration clause into its employees' most recent compliance acknowledgements, causing me, Jonathan, James and Josh to have to withdraw from the lawsuit.”
“I never imagined that I'd be pushed out of my company for standing up for what is right,” she wrote. “But if that is the cost of being on the right side of history, I'll pay it. As a woman CEO, I truly hope that you reconsider the safety of your remaining female workforce and allow Tinder and other Match owned companies to follow in the footsteps of Uber, Facebook and Google in eliminating forced arbitration for sexual misconduct claims. We deserve better.”
In response, Ginsberg denied that Pambakian was fired for complaining about sexual harassment: “You couldn't have been, as you never reported Greg for sexual harassment.”
“As explained in the letter we sent you, you were terminated because it was not possible for you to fulfill the duties and responsibilities of your role as Tinder's spokesperson for a number of reasons, including your public position against the company over a valuation process,” Ginsberg continued. “We also recently asked you to come to the office for a meeting with the HR [...]

A year and a half after giving birth to Oath, Verizon's officially rebranding its media group as… wait for it… Verizon Media Group. It's simple, it's straightforward, it says what it does on the package — and most importantly, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than “Oath.”
Division head Guru Gowrappan confirmed that the changes will go into effect on January 8 — just in time for the kick-off of CES. The exec says the change is aimed at “representing our strong alignment as a core pillar of Verizon's business.” Contrary to some initial reports spurred on by the (since changed) art accompanying the announcement blog post, Verizon tells me the big, purple Yahoo “Y” will (thankfully) not be the catchall logo for VZM.
A spokesperson for the company confirmed that an official Verizon Media Group logo is launching alongside the official rebranding on January 8. Then we'll finally see if the company is keeping the infamous Oath colon around.
Again, good.
The less brand confusion the better. “‘Oath' rhymes with ‘growth,' and that's our job, to grow,” then CEO Tim Armstrong told us at the brand's launch. Clearly, the AOL+Yahoo = Oath equation never really added up for a brand that was initially positioned to be largely internally facing. But even without the rhyming, one assumes growth is still on the docket here.
The rise of the Verizon Media Group is mostly just a rebranding exercise — the portfolio, which includes HuffPost, Engadget, Tumblr and, yes, TechCrunch, should remain largely the same.
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A growing cluster of actors, musicians and viral internet stars have Fortnite in their crosshairs. The smash hit third-person shooter is free to play but generates mountains of revenue through in-game microtransactions. Those purchased lure avid Fortnite players to spend real life cash on virtual cosmetic items, like special character skins (today: a winter skiing set!) and, most importantly, dance moves.
Now, Fortnite creator Epic Games faces two new lawsuits over dance moves: one from actor Alfonso Ribeiro who played Carlton on 90's TV hit Fresh Prince of Bel Air and another from the family of Russell Horning, better known as “Backpack Kid,” who created a viral dance called “the Floss.” Horning's lawsuit also names 2K Sports, maker of NBA 2K, for that game's depiction of his dance. Earlier in December, rapper 2 Milly filed a lawsuit against Fortnite maker Epic over the game's depiction of his dance move, the Milly Rock, which the game calls “Swipe it.”
Fortnite's in-game dance moves are ubiquitous, both in-game and out — and that's part of the problem. The game lifted its most popular dance moves from various online viral moments across the internet, TV, movies and music. In most cases the in-game dances are so well loved because they copy their source material so precisely. While the game lifts these dances move for move, making them widely recognizable, it doesn't refer to the source material directly and renames the dances with generic nicknames. In Fortnite, the “Tidy” dance is Snoop Dogg's “Drop it Like its Hot” dance, “Jubilation” is Elaine's dance from Seinfeld, “Pure Salt” (not really a dance, some of these are just emotes) is from the Salt Bae meme, Psy's Gangnam Style dance and so on.
The game draws from a wide pool of source material, but black creators in particular have spoken out about Fortnite's monetization moves. Black artists have a long history of seeing their work achieve broad mainstream popularity without commercial or credit to accompany it. When Chance the Rapper tweeted about Fortnite's relationship to black artists in July, BlocBoy JB — creator of the dance the game calls “Hype” — endorsed the idea that artists like himself should be paid if Fortnite is making money from their moves.
Wat You Said We Need Dat Cash @FortniteGame @EAMaddenNFL https://t.co/hFRH0Db1Mx
— BlocBoy JB (@BlocBoy_JB) July 13, 2018
Fortnite's default in-game emote is a dance that actor Donald Faison performs on the show Scrubs, [...]

Uber has edged closer to resuming self-driving car tests following the fatal crash in Arizona. The Information has learned that Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation approved the ridesharing company's request to start testing autonomous vehicles in the state. This doesn't mean you'll see vehicles back on the road in the immediate future, though. Uber has confirmed the approval to Engadget, but cautioned that it has nothing to share about when it will return to the road -- that won't happen until sometime in the weeks ahead, when Uber begins very limited tests.
The firm technically resumed driving in July, but only in a human-operated mode. That same month, Pennsylvania's DOT also issued driverless car testing guidance that both requires testing notifications and collects driving data from companies twice a year. Uber wasn't in a rush, however, and only asked for permission to resume tests in November.
At this stage, the questions revolve primarily around safety. Uber has promised more safeguards for the next time around, including the presence of two human observers, better training, closer monitoring and limits on working hours. It also recently hired an NHTSA veteran to help its autonomy efforts. However, it's not clear how much the technology itself has improved since the Arizona crash. Officials will likely keep a close eye on Uber's tests to make sure the chances of a second tragedy are very low.
Via: The Verge
Source: The Information [...]

Samsung designed the Frame and Serif TVs to be stylish additions to your home, like some sort of art piece that you can also use to watch movies. So, it's not surprising that the tech giant has announced an upgrade that's supposed to make them look even better: The 2019 versions of the two models will come with QLED screens.
According to Samsung, the QLED (or quantum dot-infused LED) technology will make their screens brighter and give them deeper contrasts with darker blacks. That's because quantum dots give the screen the power to produce more saturated colors. It also enables a bigger color volume, allowing the TV to display a bigger range of tones on the screen -- an element HDR mode needs to be able to replicate the colors and brightness we actually see in real life.
In addition, Samsung is also growing its partnerships to give the Frame TV access to over 1,000 pieces of art that owners can display on its screen when they're not watching anything on it. As for Serif, it now has an ambient mode that displays images, news headlines and weather updates when the TV isn't on. Samsung will showcase both models at CES 2019.
Source: Samsung [...]

The Boring Company is starting its launch event for the test tunnel it successfully built in LA running from SpaceX property to "O'Leary Station," and Elon Musk has already shared a few details. In tweets he showed off a sedan settled onto wheel gear that carries the car between elevators at each end of the tunnel, where it then simply drives right back onto the road.
According to Musk his contraption is capable of safe travel at over 150 MPH that makes it feel like "teleporting" within the city. It also can carry more than just Teslas, of course, and Musk said it applies to any "autonomous, electric car" that you might have. The live stream is about to start on the company's website, we'll update this post with any other details we learn in a few minutes.
This can be applied to any autonomous, electric vehicle, not just Tesla
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2018
The demo ride takes you in *same* car on road, down elevator, zips through tunnel using guide wheels, up elevator at destination & then drives on normal roads back to start
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2018
Source: Boring Company [...]

We regret to inform you that we may have published our article titled "Facebook's terrible 2018" just a few hours too early. Tonight the New York Times has once again dug into the social network and assembled -- based on internal documents and interviews with employees, former employees and business partners --an unflattering picture of the data it has been sharing for years with the likes of Bing and Rotten Tomatoes. Taken as a whole, these revelations make the Cambridge Analytica data leak revelations seem almost insignificant.
Even with the last few months and years of revelations, the behavior described is surprising -- and not just for users. According to the article, companies like Apple and Russian search giant Yandex claimed to not know how much access Facebook had given them to user information. In the case of Yandex, the NYT said Facebook initially claimed the company wasn't an "integration partner" in October just months before telling Congress it actually is, and had access to Facebook's unique user IDs longer than others apps.
It claims that Spotify, Netflix and the Royal Bank of Canada had access to read, write and delete private messages as well as see who was on a message thread. Apple had special access to phone numbers and calendar entries that the company said it was not aware of, while also leaving no trace that its devices were pulling in the data. Microsoft had access to the names of Facebook's users friends and was apparently building profiles of Facebook users on its own servers, while Sony and Amazon could snag email addresses of a user's friends. Even the New York Times itself makes an appearance, with an app that was discontinued in 2011 still retaining access to users' friends list.
The reporting confirms other things you may have heard before, like how Facebook pulls together information from outside sources to fill out its "People you may know" feature using so-called "shadow profiles" for people who don't have accounts.
In response to the article, Steve Satterfield said "Facebook's partners don't get to ignore people's privacy settings, and it's wrong to suggest that they do...Protecting people's information requires stronger teams, better technology, and clearer policies, and that's where we've been focused for most of 2018. Partnerships are one area of focus and, as we've said, we're winding down the integration partnerships that were built to help people access Facebook."
While we prepare for the [...]

Want a tangible sign of your devotion to Rocket League, but would rather not drop $180 on an RC car kit or even several dollars on a Pull-Back Racer? Don't worry, you can buy something with your pocket change. Hot Wheels is launching its first Rocket League die-cast car, the Octane, later in December for a very modest $1.09. You can't really set up miniature matches when only the blue will be available at first (orange doesn't show up until 2019), but this should let you race Rocket League-style on Hot Wheels tracks.
The initial car will be available in the Americas, Asia and Europe at retailers that include Walmart, Target, Canadian Tire and Tesco. It's likely arriving too late for a stocking stuffer, unfortunately. At this, price, though, it's one of the most affordable pieces of video game memorabilia you can find -- it's less expensive than many of Rocket League's add-ons, let alone the game itself.
Via: Shacknews
Source: Rocket League [...]

To date, native access to Google Assistant on a Chrome OS device has meant splurging on Google-made hardware like the Pixelbook or Pixel Slate. You won't have to be quite so picky for much longer, though. Google has started testing Chrome OS 72 in beta form, and the new release brings Assistant to third-party Chromebooks for the first time. It works in the same way as you'd expect on the Slate, with support for both voice and written commands through a pop-up at the bottom.
The beta also brings Android 9 Pie to hardware beyond the Pixel Slate. That's not exactly shocking, but it's significant when Google effectively skipped Oreo entirely on Chrome OS. You can install Gboard from the Play Store if you prefer it for typing, too. You might also appreciate the beta if you're security-conscious -- it introduces support for authentication devices that rely on Bluetooth Low Energy. You might not have to tie up a USB port for a hardware-based sign-in.
Chrome OS 72 should be available in a stable version in late January, roughly six weeks after the arrival of Chrome 71. You'll have these features early in the new year even if you're not ready to experiment.
Source: 9to5Google [...]

Surf the web for long enough and you'll invariably run into a site that refuses to acknowledge your browser's back button, usually because it wants to force ads down your throat. Google might soon put a stop to those shady redirects, though. Recently published Chromium code changes show that Google is considering a way to fight back button hijacking. Chrome would look for attempts to manipulate your browser history and would flag or skip entries that you didn't specifically request.
There aren't any indications that Google would punish the site operators, although it recently started blocking deceptive sites that use fake system alerts and similar tactics to deceive users.
Don't count on this reaching the finished version of Chrome, either. Developers plan to temporarily hide the feature behind a flag to avoid unexpected behavior, and there's no certainty this will graduate to stable versions of Chrome. It's easy to see Google going this route, mind you. Google has been taking more and more steps to fight bad behavior on the web, and back button hijacking is one of the more egregious offenses.
Via: 9to5Google, Ars Technica
Source: Chromium Gerrit [...]

Target's same-day delivery service, Shipt, is about to be much more useful if you'd prefer to shop from home. The company told TechCrunch that it's planning same-day shipping for "all major product categories" in 2019, not just certain groceries and a handful of other product categories. Shipt wouldn't say how many products would be covered or narrow down the time frame, but this suggests you could order clothes and get them in time for a night out.
Target is still expanding Shipt's availability at a rapid pace. It now reaches about 200 million American markets in 46 states, and it expects to cover a wider area in 2019. Membership has roughly tripled since the acquisition in December 2017 according to Target.
A wider range of eligible products could go a long way toward helping Target compete against Amazon and other online shopping outlets. You wouldn't have to consider alternatives if Target could deliver whatever you wanted, after all. It could also eliminate some confusion for customers. As TC pointed out, it's currently hard to tell what qualifies for Shipt delivery. If the answer to that is "everything," you may be more likely to use Shipt instead of making a trip to the physical store or skipping Target entirely.
Source: TechCrunch [...]

Just two years after launching, Google's Gboard virtual keyboard supports 500 languages on Android. That, according to Google, enables around 90 percent of the planet's human population to communicate on their phones in their first language.
In all, Gboard supports more than 40 writing systems, from scripts used in many languages -- such as Roman, Cyrillic and Devanagari -- to the likes of Ol Chiki, which is only used in one, Santali. To help people communicate more naturally, keyboard layouts are tuned for each of the language varieties, as are the autocorrect and predictive text features.
Google launched Gboard in December 2016 with support for 100 languages, and it's added just as many over the last few months. Hitting 500 in a relatively short period of time is a notable milestone, particularly since adding a language means Google typically needs to find enough written text to train the AI. That's simple enough for English or French, but tougher for less-common languages, especially those that are more verbal than written.
To otherwise obtain enough data to add a language, Google usually shares writing prompts with native speakers to create a database of text. Once it's crafted a keyboard layout and trained the AI, Google asks native speakers to test the language variety and provide feedback.
Source: Google [...]

Earlier this year, Kroger teamed up with the self-driving startup Nuro for a grocery delivery service, and in August the company began piloting an autonomous delivery service in Arizona. At the time, the deliveries were made by a self-driving Toyota Prius fleet with safety drivers on board. But now, Kroger is adding Nuro's R1 vehicle to its fleet and the move introduces a driverless component to the company's autonomous delivery service.
The R1 can drive on public roads and operates without a driver or passengers on board. It only transports goods -- in this case groceries -- and will make deliveries for one Fry's Food Store location in Scottsdale, Arizona. Customers can place orders online or through the store's app and then schedule same-day or next-day delivery. Orders will be delivered by either a self-driving Prius or Nuro's R1 vehicle.
Arizona is a hotbed of autonomous vehicle research, largely thanks to the state's openness towards the technology. A number of companies including Uber, Waymo, Intel and GM have tested their driverless technologies in Arizona and the state has created an autonomous vehicle research institute aimed at developing industry standards and best practices.
"Nuro envisions a world without errands, where everything is on-demand and can be delivered affordably," President Dave Ferguson said in a statement. "Operating a delivery service using our custom unmanned vehicles is an important first step toward that goal"
Via: MIT Technology Review
Source: Kroger [...]

Microsoft is trying to address the fear of running an unknown .exe on your PC. While some power users set up virtual machines to check unknown apps, Microsoft has developed a simple way for anyone running Windows 10 to launch apps in an isolated desktop environment. Windows Sandbox is a new feature coming to Windows 10 next year that creates a temporary desktop environment to isolate a particular app to that sandbox.
It's designed to be secure and disposable, so once you've finished running the app in this mode the entire sandbox will be deleted. You don't need to set up a virtual machine, but it will require virtualization capabilities enabled in the BIOS. Microsoft is making Windows Sandbox available as part of Windows 10 Pro or...
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What to make of the New York Times' latest story about Facebook's broad data-sharing agreements? The story, which draws on internal documents describing the company's partnerships, reports on previously undisclosed aspects of business partnerships with companies including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Spotify, and Netflix. In some cases, companies had access to data years after it was supposed to have been cut off.
Here's how the story is framed by reporters Gabriel J.X. Dance, Michael LaForgia, and Nicholas Confessore:
The documents, as well as interviews with about 50 former employees of Facebook and its corporate partners, reveal that Facebook allowed certain companies access to data despite those protections. They also raise questions...
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The space industry is rocketing through the last few weeks of 2018. And on Wednesday, December 19th, there are four rockets slated to launch from locations all over the globe. Thanks to how the orbital mechanics of these flights worked out, you could potentially watch a launch during breakfast, lunch, and dinner (depending on when you eat your meals, of course).
Originally, most of these launches were supposed to get underway on Tuesday, December 18th. But thanks to incredible luck (and unfavorable weather conditions), practically all of the rockets scheduled to launch yesterday got delayed. One of them, Blue Origin's test flight, has been pushed back to Friday.
Here are the four rocket missions set for takeoff on Wednesday, including...
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Ahead of CES, Samsung is announcing upcoming refreshes of its two most stylish 4K TVs, The Frame and Serif. These are lifestyle pieces that aim to make people rethink what a TV can and should look like. They don't offer Samsung's best picture performance — that's still reserved for the proper QLED lineup — but they're definitely good for attracting conversation in the home.
The Frame is being upgraded with an improved picture over its previous two iterations. The 2019 model will feature Samsung's quantum dot display technology for a wider HDR color palette. Aside from offering a better picture, The Frame will also now come in a new 49-inch size. (Last year's edition came in 43-, 55-, and 65-inch sizes.) Samsung markets The Frame to...
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Spam calls grew by 300 percent worldwide this year, according to a new report from Truecaller, a caller ID service. But while the scourge continues to grow overall, some countries actually saw a slight decline — including the US.
The United States fell from the 2nd most spammed country to the 8th in one year, according to Truecaller. Truecaller users received about 17 calls per month, down from 21 in 2017. The bulk of calls purported to be about insurance or debt collection, according to the report.
While no reason was given for the drop, authorities have increasingly tried to crack down on illegal callers. The Federal Trade Commission has brought several lawsuits, while the Federal Communications Commission has considered various...
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The US Surgeon General just declared youth vaping an epidemic, and called out e-cigarette giant Juul as part of the problem in an advisory today. The Surgeon General's declaration isn't a new policy or enforcement action against vape companies or retailers. But it is a call to action that follows news that teen vaping is skyrocketing.
Surgeon General Jerome Adams' advisory lays out why teen vaping is a public health concern: nicotine can mess with the developing brain, it's addictive, and the chemicals in e-cigarette vapor may be unhealthy to inhale. The advisory says a recent surge in teen vaping “has been fueled by new types of e-cigarettes that have recently entered the market,” and calls out vape giant Juul for its high nicotine...
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Over the years, Google has loaned out its Street View camera to photographers, travelers, and organizations to bring 360-degree imagery of cultural landmarks to Google Maps. Today, the company announced it's taken the feedback from partners who have used the Trekker, as the camera rig is called, around the world and updated it with their suggestions. The new Street View Trekker is lighter, sleeker, and the cameras have been updated with increased aperture and higher-resolution sensors.
The Trekker is versatile enough to be worn like a backpack, or placed on top of everything from cars to boats to zip-lines. It's especially useful for exploring areas that might otherwise be difficult to travel to with a Street View-equipped car, as well...
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Apple is starting to send unwanted push notifications to iPhone users, including ones designed to promote its own Carpool Karaoke show — even though Apple's TV app never expressly asks for permission to send promotional notifications, and even though Apple's App Store guidelines forbid developers from sending unsolicited promos.
We're not sure how many iPhone users received the notifications, but it looks like Apple has tried plugging its show at least twice in recent weeks: once on December 7th for an episode where Kendall Jenner and Hailey Baldwin grill each other using a lie detector test, and once on December 14 for an episode featuring joint singalongs with comedian Jason Sudeikis and the Muppets.
Some people aren't happy:
Hey @...
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Lil Yachty is an award-nominated rapper whose songs have generated him millions of fans around the world. He's also the newest member of FaZe Clan, a gaming collective that is quickly becoming the Supreme of e-sports.
The team officially welcomed Lil Yachty to FaZe Clan during the rapper's performance at the Rolling Loud festival this past weekend. Yachty invited a number of FaZe members, including RiceGum (a YouTube creator with more than 10 million subscribers) and leader Richard “FaZe Banks” Bengtson up on stage. They then presented him with his own shirt, welcoming “FaZe Boat” to the group. It's unclear if Yachty has his own line of merchandise coming, or what his exact role within FaZe Clan will be, but he is 100 percent invested...
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Uber has been given the green light by Pennsylvania officials to restart its self-driving car tests on public roads. The program was shut down last March after a self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. The crash was the first death attributed to a self-driving car, and it was seen as a significant setback for the industry, which is racing to get autonomous vehicles into commercial use.
Pennsylvania's Department of Transportation approved Uber's request to start testing autonomously in Pittsburgh, where its Advanced Technologies Group is headquartered, according to The Information. The news comes a few days after the tech site reported that a former Uber manager sent an 890-word email to some of the...
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Back in 2015, a woman named Imy Santiago wrote an Amazon review of a novel that she had read and liked. Amazon immediately took the review down and told Santiago she had “violated its policies.” Santiago re-read her review, didn't see anything objectionable about it, so she tried to post it again. “You're not eligible…... [...]

With its extensive system of rings, Saturn is among the most beautiful planets in the Solar System. Sadly, it's beauty may be fleeting, according to new research. Saturn's rings are dissolving faster than scientists expected, according to the study, and they could be gone in 100 million to 300 million years—a…... [...]

The Trump administration isn't about renewable energy, but thanks to the Washington, D.C., city council, it could soon be running on clean power. The council passed one of the most ambitious climate bills in the country on Tuesday requiring the District to get all of its energy from renewables by 2032.... [...]